Much excitement for Brian Clivas, the new boss at Langan’s, whose Christie’s sale of artworks owned by Peter Langan raised £1.4 million for refurbishment.

Roman Abramovich is said to have bought two pictures of Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge ground by the late Lawrence Toynbee. The paintings were valued at £15,000 each but went for £70,000 and £42,000.

The sale has not gone down well with Evening Standard food critic Fay Maschler, who wrote in Caterer magazine: “Like others after him, Peter Langan wanted to recreate the atmosphere of a grand Parisian brasserie ... The imminent sale of his perspicacious art collection is one of the saddest events in London restaurants.”

My colleague Brian Sewell recalls how Langan asked Patrick Procktor to paint a mural of Venice in winter for the Brasserie.“Patrick preferred cool clarity and did not give Peter what he wanted; with coats of varnish the colour of tobacco that muted Patrick’s vision, vandalism was Peter’s furious response. Their friendship did not survive what Patrick called Peter’s ‘buggering up’.”